The present invention relates to automatically generated source code, and more particularly to automatically generated object-oriented source code. Even more particularly, the present invention relates to automatically generated source code objects within extensible object frameworks and links to enterprise resources.
Object-oriented applications organize data and routines together into encapsulated units referred to as objects. Object-oriented applications lead to modular software systems that have increased flexibility and are easy to alter and maintain.
An object model is a formal description of an object-oriented application. Semantic elements of an object model describe object classes, attributes of object classes, relationships between object classes and inheritance between object classes. An object model provides a powerful mechanism to represent the real world, for example, because objects carry information about inherited characteristics and relationships with other objects.
For example, the object model of a patient record may contain many classes, such as "drug treatments." The drug treatments class can have attributes, such as "dosage"; relationships, such as "drug treatments" is related to "medications"; and inheritances, such as "anasesia" inherits from "medications".
The difference between a relational database management system and an object oriented application is that an object "knows" what operations can be performed on its data, whereas a relational database management system only has a set of generic operations that can be performed on its tuples. The semantics available in an object model are not preserved in a relational database. For example, in an object model "anasesia" knows that it is related to "drug treatment" and inherits from "medications". In contrast, a relational database represents this information as three separate data tables with no explicit representation of the relationships between the tables. The "drug treatment table" in a relational database might have foreign key information referring to the "medications table", but the representation of the relationship between "drug treatments" and "medications" is implicit. It is up to the developer to know about these relationships, what they mean, and how to handle them.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,371, (the '371 patent) for a METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF OBJECT ORIENTED CODE FOR MAPPING RELATIONAL DATA TO OBJECTS, to Henninger, et al., on Mar. 2, 1996, incorporated herein by reference, describes a method and apparatus for using an object model of an object-oriented application to automatically map information between an object-oriented application and a structured database, such as a relational database. The assignee of the '371 patent, Persistences Software, Inc. of San Mateo, Calif., markets a product known as POWERTIER, that enables developers to work with relational data as a set of objects, and eliminates a large percent of the Structured Query Language (SQL) data access, Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) connection and translation management code within an application while simplifying issues such as object mapping, identity, caching and concurrency. The POWERTIER product includes an application server that enables developers to create thin-client applications based an Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) specification and consists of the following components: a POWERTIER live object server, which is a high performance, object application server for creating enterprise-class application based on Enterprise Java Beans, enabling developers to focus on developing business logic instead of issues such as object mapping, shared caching, transactions, notification and concurrency; POWERTIER object builder generates Java object classes that integrate application server objects with relational databases, working in conjunction with standard Java development environment to create Enterprise Java Beans deployment interfaces in classes; POWERTIER management is an Application Program Interface (API) providing a comprehensive management system for centralized server administration functionality, including configuration, monitoring, and reporting through a Java-based management Application Program Interface (API) for complete control of server cache management, thread pools, and database connection caching.
OBJECT MATTER business site framework is an object-relational Java framework that allows Java objects to be saved and retrieved from relational databases. OBJECT MATTER contains an object/relational mapping engine that automatically implements object persistence to relational databases, allowing a programmer to eliminate concerns about Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), instead focusing on an object model.
UNISQL/X provides a fully object-oriented data model that along with UNISQL/M multi-database system represents a client service database system with support for a full object-oriented paradigm, yet retaining capabilities of relational database systems including support for ANSI standard Structured Query Language (SQL).
Intersolv DATADIRECT simplifies data access in complex environments through high-performance, standards-based data connectivity for clients, servers and the world wide web, scalable from small projects to enterprise level projects. DATADIRECT includes support for object database connectivity (ODBC), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) and OLE DB implementations on client/server and world wide web platforms across major operating systems, and access to at least thirty databases from local files to large enterprise databases.
Rougewave DB TOOLS.H++ provides portable, object-oriented access to leading relational database management systems, encapsulating Structured Query Language (SQL) 92 DML, including critical Structured Query Language (SQL), extensions, such as stored procedures. DB TOOLS.H++ also supports dynamic Structured Query Language (SQL), asynchronous database access, and is multi-thread safe. DB TOOLS.H++ supports development of applications that are portable across operating systems and among databases such as Oracle, Sybase, Informix, ODBC and MS SQL server.
The present invention advantageously improves upon the above-described approaches adding significant additional functionality and features either not provided in the above approaches or provided in a limited or otherwise disadvantageous way.